pp. 703-722
S&M3205 Research Paper of Special Issue https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM4109 Published: March 9, 2023 Using iBeacon Components to Design and Fabricate Low-energy and Simple Indoor Positioning Method [PDF] Cheng-Yi Chen, Min-Hsien Cheng, Marvin Cheng, and Cheng-Fu Yang (Received September 12, 2022; Accepted October 25, 2022) Keywords: indoor positioning method, low energy, iBeacon components, virtual digital electronic fences, fingerprint database
Indoor positioning technology plays an important role in many industrial applications of device localization in different environments. An appropriate indoor positioning system can significantly reduce the total cost of deployment and required searching time by sharing individual information. To achieve these goals, the system must have three important properties: light weight, low cost, and high precision. In this paper, an enhanced triangulation technique with strength signatures of transmitted signals is proposed. The proposed approach can simplify the indoor positioning algorithm as well as improve the positioning precision in planar locations. The physical system integrates a blind device and multiple established base stations using iBeacon components. Wearable devices or equipment tags moving in a targeted area can be considered blind (observation) devices. The base stations placed at certain locations can form virtual digital electronic fences and effectively receive iBeacon signals from blind devices. Using the measured strength of received signals and corresponding topology analysis, the location of a blind device can be accurately located in real time. In the proposed positioning method, the positioning area is divided into rectangular or triangular subareas with a side length of 8–10 m. Each area uses one side as the place of base station installation and establishes a loss value database of three or four endpoints measured in the area. Then, the coordinates of the blind device can be effectively estimated with a specified precision by the proposed triangulation method and the known fingerprint database. Experimental results show that this innovative positioning method has an average error of less than 0.5 m in the worst scenario. The proposed indoor positioning method can also be easily used in various environments.
Corresponding author: Marvin Cheng, Cheng-Fu YangThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Cite this article Cheng-Yi Chen, Min-Hsien Cheng, Marvin Cheng, and Cheng-Fu Yang, Using iBeacon Components to Design and Fabricate Low-energy and Simple Indoor Positioning Method, Sens. Mater., Vol. 35, No. 3, 2023, p. 703-722. |